Look Who's a Guest Artist at Centralia College!

Thrilled to have been invited to come and speak about some of my favorite topics!

Acchio Musica Thematicus! 

The fourth installment in the Harry Potter film franchise was a bridge between established composer legend John Williams and others who took up the wand. Explore the ways in which Patrick Doyle retained beloved musical themes and introduced new ones in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, with specific examples for analysis of how they relate to what is happening on-screen. Alohomora the hidden magic of musical language in film!

Charts Alive

Recording budgets can be tight, but it can take just one live instrument to bring a computer-based project to the next level. Susan recently began learning how to play violin as an adult, all the better to write for it, and it quickly became an obsession in and of itself. Hear excerpts of a recent work along with demos of how intimate knowledge of an instrument can inform a composer’s writing. Whether recorded by a full live orchestra, an expert soloist, a virtual instrument or something in between, composition benefits from the composer opening new doors of learning.